7:30 p.m. Update: Boehner wins as Republicans fight to keep House

Nov. 6, 2012 at 5:06 a.m.

Hyun Sook holds a sign and waves to voters as they pull into Holy Family Catholic Church on Tuesday in Victoria. Her husband, Bret Baldwin, is running for U.S. Congress. She was in Victoria to represent him while he visited with voters in Corpus Christi.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Speaker John Boehner won unopposed re-election Tuesday to his Ohio congressional seat and other incumbents in the East and South were cruising to easy wins as Republicans fought to extend their control of the House for two more years.

Boehner was joined in victory by the chamber's No. 2 Republican, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Underscoring the advantage that House incumbents usually face, 20 of the first 21 races called by The Associated Press were victories by current lawmakers - five Democrats and 15 Republicans.

In the other called race, the GOP held onto an open seat: Republican Ted Yoho, a veterinarian, won in a northern Florida district months after he ousted 24-year incumbent Cliff Stearns in a primary.

Democrats had been hoping to add the 25 seats on Election Day that they would need to take control of the chamber from Republicans, or at least gain a healthy number of districts. But after both sides' House candidates and their allies spent a record 1.1 billion campaigning, it appeared Democrats might pick up just a handful of seats.

Though all 435 House seats were in play, only around 60 featured truly competitive races.

Democrats targeted many of the 87 members of the GOP's tea party-backed freshman class of 2010 that swept the party to House control. Only about two dozen faced threatening challenges.

As Obama's lead over GOP challenger Mitt Romney shriveled to a near draw as Election Day approached, Democrats' expectations for coattails that would boost their House candidates shrunk as well. Republicans, building off their enhanced control of statehouses, also did a robust job of protecting their incumbents and weakening Democrats when congressional district lines were redrawn after the 2010 census, especially in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

The economy and jobs dominated the presidential campaign, but there was little evidence either party had harnessed those issues in a decisive way at the House level. Both sides agreed that this year's election lacked a nationwide wave that would give either side sweeping strength - as occurred when Democrats seized control in 2006 and expanded their majority in 2008, and Republicans snatched the chamber back in 2010.

Democrats had predicted that waning public support for the tea party movement and disgust with gridlock between Congress and Obama would cost Republicans seats. They also said the House GOP budget and its reshaping of the popular Medicare health care program would wound House Republican candidates - especially after the fiscal blueprint's author, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, became his party's vice presidential nominee.

From coast to coast, Democrats flooded the airwaves with TV spots linking GOP candidates to the tea party and to crusades to abolish Medicare and slash taxes for the rich. Republicans responded by tying Democratic candidates to Obama and his economic stimulus and health care overhaul laws, especially in areas where he is less popular.

Going into Tuesday's voting, Republicans controlled the House 242-193, including vacancies in two formerly GOP-held and three Democratic seats.

Turnover was inevitable, and a large number of newcomers will be sworn into the House in January no matter what.

There were 62 districts where no incumbents were running at all, either because they had retired or lost earlier party primaries or because the seats were newly created to reflect the census.

When combined with likely losses by incumbents, the number of new House members in the next Congress could match the 91 freshmen who started serving in 2011 - a number unmatched since 1993.

Polls underscored the public sentiment that Democrats had hoped they could use to their advantage.

A CBS News-New York Times poll late last month showed just 15 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was handling its job, near its historic lows. And an Associated Press-GfK poll in August showed that 39 percent approved of congressional Democrats while just 31 percent were satisfied with congressional Republicans.

Republicans, however, enjoyed a significant financial edge.

Republican House candidates, the GOP and allies like Karl Rove's American Crossroads political committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent a combined 664 million on House races through October, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Democrats and their backers like labor and environmental groups spent a total of 506 million.